egalitarian marriage

For the past few weeks, many in the dad blogging community have united around the cause to get Amazon.com to change the name of their parent-centric shopping site from “Amazon Mom” to “Amazon Family.”

To many, verbiage like “Amazon Mom” seems like a small concern. In the grand scheme of things, I guess it is. However, to me, these words are an indicator of how our society often undervalues fathers and, by implication, places an unfair burden on mothers. After all, if only “moms” are full “parents,” so much of the burden shifts to them. Many others have written about the societal implications of such messaging for both moms and dads, so today, I’d like to focus on how this notion that parenting is woman’s work insidiously makes its way into corporate culture- to the detriment of working dads, working moms, kids and employers themselves.

When surveyed, dads overwhelmingly say that they would prefer to share childcare and housework relatively equally with their spouses, and would prefer to use flexibility and parental leave to better balance work and family. However, the data show that while men have made significant progress on both fronts, our actions do not match our intentions–leaving us more “locked into” work and less involved at home than we’d like.

I was lucky that my career, employer flexibility and family dynamics were conducive to my being a very involved dad.

There are a few reasons for this mismatch. While corporate cultures and lack of societal support are major problems, it is also true that we sometimes get in our own way. Here’s a quick rundown of the barriers today’s dads face, including some advice on how we may be able to change our situations (future posts will dive more deeply into each topic).

My colleague’s story illustrates the negative ripple effects that a non-supportive employer has, not just on working dads, but also on their spouses, kids, and their own bottom line.

The other day, I was chatting with a new colleague. She had just returned from the workforce after having opted out of her career due to family demands. Her two young children had health problems, meaning that she and her husband needed some family support from their employers- but never received it.

An article in the Guardian defending traditional dads from the peer pressure of “50/50 dads” goes too far in trying to make its case- at one point, insulting involved dads by calling them “Wet Wipes.” Let’s stop with the Daddy Wars, please.

The layers of judgment and condescension towards other dads obscures the one decent point in Alex Bilmes’ article.

My advice to Alex Bilmes- be whatever type of parent you want to be (short of being abusive or neglectful), let others choose their own styles, and stop being a judgmental jerk about it.

The recent Pew Research Report focuses on “The Rise of Breadwinner Moms“. However, if you look beyond the headline into the data, the real take-away should be that the clear majority of households are “dual-earner/shared-care”– why don’t employers and our society realize this and start adapting for long-term success?

Like most headlines, this is somewhat misleading. They only get to the 40% number by cobbling together the 11% never-married single mother households, the 14% single-mother-divorced households and the 15% of dual-parent households with female breadwinners. These are kinda three separate groups, no?

If you really dive into the data, what you find is that only 15% of two-parent families and 22.5% of dual-income families have the wife as the primary earner. While this is notable, and represents larger percentages than in the past, the fact is the vast, vast majority of families and dual-income families rely on the husbands for the larger share of the income.

About two months ago, I wrote about my wife’s new show, and how her work hours would spike for several weeks. I discussed our family’s plan for handling this time period, considering my work commitments and increased duties at home. The show is over, so now it’s time to see how we did, and what lessons we learned.

My wife’s career as a stage actress has led to lots of cool experiences, funny costumes, and work-family juggling

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that my incredible wife Amy is a musical theater actress, and, depending on the project, her work schedule is often demanding, haphazard, inconvenient and inflexible.

About two months ago, Amy began work on an excellent new play, “The English Bride”. The play was very well-received (see this review!), so much so that it will run at the 59 E59 Theater off-Broadway, NYC in the Fall.

Our job as fathers is to equip our children to have productive, happy and meaningful lives. In my opinion, the best way to do so is by role-modeling the values, priorities and actions to which we hope they will aspire.

I hope I can role-model good work-family values for my son

One day, I hope Nick will get married, and I want him to value not just his own career, but also the career of his life partner. This is not a lesson that is taught effectively through words. I hope that, by seeing how supportive I am of my wife Amy (and she is of me), he will seek out a supportive spouse and that he will value his spouse’s career as much as his own.

First off, if you haven’t already, please read Part 1, which I posted on Monday. This article picks up where that one left off.

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Praise for The Working Dad’s Survival Guide

"If you're like most dads, you're facing an impossible tug of war between work and home. My advice? Read The Working Dad's Survival Guide. This smart, charming, and actionable guide offers a practical toolkit for thriving in both domains. You'll discover how to make family time more memorable, how to negotiate for work flexibility, and why you should pack at least one stuffed animal on every business trip. Behson is the rare writer who can communicate everything you need to know, while making you feel like you're just chatting over a beer with a good friend."
- Ron Friedman, PhD, author The Best Place to Work